Durarara!! SH - Volume 4 - Chapter 3.5

INTERMISSION

Dirty Private Business (3)

Outside Sonohara-dou, night

“How does it look?”

“Um…I don’t know. I don’t sense anyone…”

Members of Heaven’s Slave were spying on the Sonohara-dou storehouse on Yukihiko Natsugawara’s orders. They were grouping up in twos and threes to walk past the building, stealing furtive glances, and so far they were unable to calculate the right time to take action.

“He said we could kidnap the owner. Should we really be doing that?”

“Dunno. Our leader’s a rich guy. He could probably cover it up.”

“But will he cover it up if we get caught?”

“Beats me. Grabbing someone off the street is one thing, but a home invasion followed by an abduction? That’s bad news, man. We’d get arrested for sure.”

As the pair of men walked by, something struck them as wrong. The streetlight a short distance away had suddenly gone out.

However, further examination showed that the light was not actually out.

Something was standing atop the light, its feet exuding some mysterious material, either a black liquid or smoke, and it was covering the light bulb, blocking its light.

“Hwuh?!”

“Wha…wh-wh-wha…?! What is that?!”

As the thugs panicked, the thing bounded off the streetlight, shooting shadow out of its feet like jet boosters before making a soft landing right in front of them.

It was so bizarre, so illogical. Sheer confusion overrode the thugs’ sense of fear. Their jaws dropped open, and they glanced at one another.

“You’re Shijima’s boys.”

“Huh? Shijima…? Wh-who’s that…?”

“Don’t play stupid with me!”

Enough time had now passed in the presence of the thing emitting shadow from its back that their instinct of fear had finally reached their brains. They tried to scream once their lungs managed to work again, but they couldn’t vocalize anything. They spun on their heels and fled like startled rabbits.

Don’t you dare!

The mysterious shadow, Celty, extended her power toward their legs, intending to truss up the two suspicious punks like she so often did.

Based on the information in Kuon’s e-mail, she assumed Shijima was the one behind this and waited around Sonohara-dou, intending to catch anyone who might be trying to sneak in again tonight.

Sure enough, some would-be intruders appeared, and while listening from atop the streetlight, she heard snippets like “kidnap the owner,” “rich parents,” and “cover it up,” which convinced her these were the goons she was waiting for.

I can’t let Anri get hurt… While it worries me, I suppose I could ask Shinra to use Kujiragi’s Saika and control them…

It seemed to her that Shinra would probably roll around on the floor and protest, No, no, no! I don’t want to use the Saika that sliced Celty to slice some gross, sweaty men! She decided to go ahead and kidnap the two.

And just when her shadow was mere inches away from her prey—shunk! A powerful impact slammed through Celty’s body.

…?!

A moment later, she registered pain all through her being.

Her sense of pain was significantly duller than a human’s, but even this felt like intense agony. It might have been worse than the pain of Shingen’s and Emilia’s vivisection attempts. Alarmed, she tried to identify the cause.

The center of the shock was around her waist. She reached out toward the spot with her shadow and discovered something was lodged into her riding suit made of darkness.

Is this—?!

With a sinking suspicion, she searched for the object, which had sunk into her flesh within the riding suit—and with a sharp pain, her prying shadow tendrils extracted the object.

A bullet?!

It was a dented lead bullet. Celty deployed a shadow shield around herself that offered three hundred and sixty degrees of cover. Then she focused on the direction the bullet had presumably come from, but nothing else was forthcoming.

Just in case, Celty thickened the shadow of her suit before undoing the shield. Ordinarily, it was sturdy enough that it wouldn’t allow a bullet through, but it was not unlike a bulletproof vest; it didn’t eliminate the shock of impact. She strengthened her shadow with layer upon layer, staying wary.

But no more attacks seemed forthcoming, leaving the misshapen bullet in Celty’s palm as the only evidence of the attack.

I didn’t hear a gunshot…so was I sniped from long distance, using a sound suppressor? Also, I probably should have known this already, but man, my shadow is tough…

Grateful to the power of her shadow, which had once stopped a shot from an anti-matériel rifle, Celty headed for Shooter, who was parked nearby. Her mount was in the form of a horse, his tail flicking back and forth uneasily.

Hmm? What’s wrong, Shooter?

It was like he was trying to flick something away from his rear legs with his tail. Celty examined them and found some kind of small device attached to him.

Is this…a transmitter?! Dammit, was someone watching me when I parked Shooter? Or are those two goons just a distraction, and this was Shijima’s real goal?

She crushed the transmitter and glanced around, but naturally, the pair of hoodlums were long gone. In the process, they’d sent a message to all the others who’d been scattered around, and she couldn’t sense any of them near Sonohara-dou anymore.

Celty felt frustrated; she’d seemingly averted danger for tonight, but it wasn’t a real solution to the problem at all.

I was sloppy. I didn’t expect them to use an actual gun… This means time is of the essence. Anri is essentially stronger than I am, but she’s got no defense against a sniper rifle she can’t see coming.

Her realization that the situation had worsened significantly and that the two goons had slipped away only added to her frustration.

Ugh…I should have tied them up first and asked what they were doing. I’m a disgrace of a professional, she thought, hopping onto Shooter. Then she caught herself and screamed, Whoa, whoa, whoa! A professional what?! I’m not a police officer or a mercenary or a hit man! Ordinary couriers don’t tie up hoodlums to question them!

She was falling into a deep despair at the thought that even her mental definition of courier was starting to go awry. Dejectedly, she sent Shinra a message.

“Hey, Shinra…what is a courier anyway?”

His reply arrived in less than a minute, which was somewhat creepy, but Celty felt grateful for his attention. She could not have imagined, however, how long his answer would be.

“Why, it’s a profession that is only for you, Celty: the person who brings love to the client that is me! Any courier under any other definition is a fraud… Yes, only you are my 100% true love, Celty! The love-distributing Santa Claus! In fact, I’ll hire you for a job right now! Courier, please bring me the angel known as Celty! And though it’s not the season, I would love it if you were dressed as Santa! That would be so, so, so great!”

Meanwhile, at a research building—Nebula office in Chicago

“…Oh?”

Nebula was one of the largest conglomerates in the world.

In this secret research facility, which only existed on paper as materials storage for the company’s pharmaceutical research wing, a Japanese researcher gasped with suspicion.

“What is it, Namie? Do we have a problem?” asked her gas mask–wearing supervisor. Namie Yagiri squinted at her research subject and muttered to herself.

“I feel like I just saw this head make the most bitter grimace ever…but it must have been my imagination.”